18 Ways to Savor Summer

The saying “Good things never last” is true of summer in Pennsylvania — but man, is it glorious while it’s here.

We don’t want you to get to the end of August and have regrets about how you spent your longest days of the year. So we’ve compiled a ton of fun events and activities to work into your summer — the season of new experiences and no regrets. Enjoy!

01 Make A Splash

The Park Forest and Welch Pools are open for summer fun until Aug. 31. In addition to the usual splashing, sliding and swimming, there are some special things happening at both pools this season.

• Get building and paddling for the first-ever Welch Pool Cardboard Regatta. Build a boat out of duct tape and cardboard, and race it for prizes on July 4 from 2 to 4:30 p.m.! CRPR has cardboard available on a first-come, first-served basis. Open to ages 6 and over, with three divisions.

• Test your athleticism with the Wibit Floating Obstacle Course, which will rotate weekends at the pools starting with Park Forest Pool on June 16 and 17; alternating weekends will continue through Labor Day.

• Go for a Late Night Swim when the pool stays open until 9:30 p.m. for a special swim-under-the-stars treat. (June 20 and July 11 at Welch Pool; June 27 and July 18 at Park Forest Pool. Admission rates apply.)

• We all know Dads do the best cannonballs, and they can prove it on Father’s Day weekend. Both pools will celebrate Dollar Days on June 16 and 17, when dads are admitted for $1 for open swim from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. crpr.org

02 Take a Hike Downtown

Last summer’s Centred Outdoors initiative, which brought people to guided outdoor adventures in Centre County, saw “more than 1,400 adventures taken by local residents,” says Deb Nardone, executive director of ClearWater Conservancy, which dreamed up and implemented last year’s program thanks to a $100,000 Centre Inspires grant from Centre Foundation. This year, the programming will continue to explore the 10 destinations from last year’s lineup — and add one new activity. On July 8 and 11, take a guided hike through downtown State College — before thousands of people descend for Arts Fest.

“To go out for a hike doesn’t mean you have to go out into nature,” Nardone says. “There’s plenty of beautiful places in and around a couple of steps from your front door.”

Nardone says the hike will explore “all of the unique art that is already downtown” and benefit from the energy of downtown preparing for Arts Fest.

“There’s a beautiful amount of art downtown that I’m not sure people really know about or appreciate.”

03 Catch a Flick For Free

Wind down — and cool down — on Wednesday afternoons this summer with the Read It, Watch It movie series at The State Theatre. In conjunction with Schlow Centre Region Library’s annual summer reading program — this year with a theme of ‘Libraries Rock!’ — the free movies start at noon.

04 Get your Gaze On

Take to the skies — with your eyes — with help from Penn State’s Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics during the 20th annual Astrofest, July 11-14. There are talks, activities, presentations and, of course, telescopes. astro.psu.edu

05 Dash for a Cache

Who doesn’t like a good treasure hunt?

If you’ve never tried geocaching, it’s not too late to give this tech-driven adventure activity a try. And with more than 3 million geocaches hidden out there in over 190 countries, there’s plenty of treasure to go around. Heck, there are more than 400 caches just in the 16801 zip code.

Pam Salokangas has been geocaching since 2001, having gotten into the activity with her father. “We got hooked right away,” says Salokangas, director of Centre County Parks and Recreation. “We liked challenges, we like to go out and find stuff.”

CRPR maintains two caches. Both are near the public pools, and both are puzzle caches, meaning the geocacher has to solve a puzzle in order to find the cache. CRPR also allows caches placed by private citizens in its parks; Parks and Rec staff keeps track of where the caches are and whether they’re being properly maintained.

But caches aren’t just in parks or wooded areas; no doubt you’ve passed plenty hidden in birdhouses, tucked into building cracks and disguised in plain view.

If you want to give this fun family activity a try, Salokangas has some tips for newbies.

Download the free Geocaching app onto your smart phone.

Turn on Location Services on your phone, so the app will show you nearby caches. (You also can opt to use a separate GPS device.)

If you’re going geocaching alone, tell someone where you’re headed.

Caches are ranked by the degree of difficulty to find the cache, and by the difficulty of the terrain to reach the cache. (D/T) Beginners should look for caches that are a 1-2 level of difficulty, and a 1-2 level for terrain. “Those are gonna be in town, the types of caches that are grab-and-gos,” Salokangas says. “It builds your confidence. It allows you to get really comfortable with the device you’re using and the app.”

Once you find a cache, sign its logbook, and log it on the Geocaching app to keep track of which caches you’ve found and how many are still out there to discover.

The standing rule is if you take something from a cache, you should leave something. So bring a stash of small trinkets or stickers with you, so you’ll have a tiny treasure to leave for the next cacher to find.

Else Breval and Carsten Pedersen

The Carels Cache In

State College residents Carsten Pedersen and Else Breval are known in the geocaching world simply as “the Carels.” Technically, it’s a mash-up of their first names. But it’s also a team name, of sorts. And their team has been putting up impressive numbers since they started geocaching in 2004.

“At one time, we were No. 82 in the world,” says Pedersen of their worldwide rank among geocachers. As of last month, the Carels had found 29,317 caches, with that number climbing nearly every single day.

“Some people, they retire, they go home and sit in the chair and watch TV and that’s it,” says Pedersen, who’s in his late seventies. “So we’re out, we see stuff. And when you geocache, you have friends all over the States.”

The couple, who met in their native Denmark and were married in 1983, have found caches in seven or eight countries and at least 25 states, and have traveled across the country just to geocache, attending geocaching conferences and meet-ups along the way.

The Carels are well-known in this region and beyond for their geocaching prowess and speed. “They’re the ones that everybody around here knows,” says Salokangas. “The goal is to beat the Carels to be the ‘First To Find’ [a new cache]. Nobody ever beats them.”

Super geocachers like the Carels sign up to get alerts when a brand-new cache is logged as active. “And if it’s 11 o’clock in the evening and it’s 3 miles away, I’ll go out and get it,” says Pedersen, who has 1,059 FTFs, as they’re called. His wife, who’s in her early eighties, is behind that competitive spirit 100 percent.

“It’s very good to be first to find. You have bragging rights,” she says.

And the geocaching power couple has plenty to brag about. They’ve put nearly 500,000 geocaching miles on their yellow Hummer, which is just about as well-known to local geocachers as the Carels themselves. The most caches Pedersen says he’s found in a single day is 844. It was an 11-hour marathon geocaching session with two friends along a stretch of Route 66 in California that’s been designated a geotrail. “That’s what’s called a power trail,” Pedersen says, with a cache found about every 500 feet.

And they’ve contributed much to the activity they love, too. The Carels currently maintain about 30 caches in the area, and delight in reading the logbooks of those who have found their hidden treasures. “The coolest thing is that we get adventures (from geocaching),” Breval says, describing a trip to Utah that included hiking along the rim of an inactive volcano searching for a cache. Of course, they found it.

“It was so exciting,” she says. “We would not have known that this place existed.”

Geo LingoFTF: First To Find. The person logged as the first to find a new cache. Geotrail: A series of geocaches linked by a common theme or topicMuggle: A non-geocacher. Nano cache: The tiniest of all micro caches. About the size of a pencil eraser, nano caches are often hidden in cracks or crevices. (So if you see someone standing outside a building staring at the wall, they might be geocaching.) Puzzle Cache: Requires geocachers to solve puzzles to decode the cache’s GPS coordinates or use clues to unlock a cache once it’s found.Travel bug: A trackable tag that you attach to an item, which allows you to track it on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a tiny hitchhiker carried from cache to cache by random geocachers and you can follow its progress online and see how far it goes.

06 Celebrate Creativity

From puppets to belly dancing, the Central PA Theatre and Dance Fest is a weekend dedicated to local performing arts. By Samantha Lauriello

An evening at the theater is always full of excitement. Whether actors are drawing you in to a play’s intricacies or dancers are whisking you away with their rhythm, the arts serve as an escape. But why does that break from the day’s realities have to end when the curtain closes?

The Central PA Theatre and Dance Fest is working to extend the journey of the stage across an entire weekend in celebration of the local arts community.

From June 22 to 24, more than 20 local companies will come together to perform and produce a festival “with less of an interest in static performances and more emphasis on the fact that theater, dance, movement and poetry can be part of a person’s life for an entire lifetime,” says Elaine Meder-Wilgus, owner of Webster’s Bookstore Cafe and co-founder of the festival.

With events ranging from aerial dancing to puppeteering to interpreting spoken word with the body, Meder-Wilgus says the weekend is based on “the sheer breadth of cross pollination between all of these groups.”

The event is the brainchild of Mark Higgins, Centre County commissioner, who was inspired by Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada.

Higgins noticed that Stratford, a town with a population smaller than that of State College, was putting on an internationally recognized annual theater festival. He was confident State College could bring something similar to life.

Since Higgins approached Meder-Wilgus and Cynthia Mazzant with the idea, the two have been working together to figure out how each local company’s strengths can come together in the most productive way.

“We’re trying to be as organic as possible,” says Mazzant, whose nonprofit theater company, Tempest Productions, is organizing the festival. “We’ve had several meetings bringing in all of the companies to ask them, ‘Hey, what is it that you feel you do best and what would you like to offer?’”

Mazzant calls it a “reverse creative process.” Rather than dictating the event’s artistic direction, the combination of each organization’s charisma will set the scene for the weekend.

FUSE Productions’ musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame will serve as a type of centerpiece for the festival with showings throughout the weekend in Schwab Auditorium.

“We’re thrilled because we’re the first to produce (Hunchback) here in State College,” says Richard Biever, director of the show and founder of FUSE Productions.

The show will feature both music from the 1996 Disney film as well as extra material for the stage. In addition to the on-stage actors, a choir larger than the cast will create an atmosphere mimicking the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful and touching tale,” Biever says. “It’s very timely because it’s about how immigrants are treated and how people who are ‘less than’ are treated in society.”

For Biever and others involved in the festival, building both an audience for and awareness of local arts are two hopes for the weekend.

“The Theatre and Dance Fest is a way of highlighting just how much there is going on in this area because all of the companies participating are from here,” Biever says. “Everything that’s happening is produced locally, and I think that’ll hit people pretty strongly.”

Though State College has a booming arts community, Biever says many people aren’t completely aware of it.

Those attending the festival will happen across companies and art forms they may not have known existed locally, he says.

In between performances, festivalgoers will have the opportunity to be more than audience members. A number of dance and theater workshops will provide “a chance to hone your skills,” Meder-Wilgus says.

Though Meder-Wilgus has been involved in theater since she was young, she says she hit a dry spell in her young adult life when she simply got too busy.

“It was getting back into it that made me realize just how connected it made me feel both to myself and to other people,” she says in hopes that the workshops will help others reconnect with the arts as well. There will also be social events and chances to sit and chat or play games with others in attendance.

“If we demonstrate to our children that as adults we still have imaginations,” Meder-Wilgus says, “I think that’s a really powerful message to send to them and to our community.”

Between the amount of companies participating, the number of performances and the level of enthusiasm, Biever says he feels like it’s already the fifth year of the festival.

Meder-Wilgus agrees. “We’re already seeing the founding organizations that are participating this year saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great down the road…’”

Confident the festival will continue to grow, she hopes in years to come it will draw people in from outside of the area.

“The idea that over this weekend we’ll meet people from all over the region who share a love of art, theater, dance, movement, poetry,” she says, “that to me is the area of growth I want to see.”

07 Get Entangled

If you haven’t been to the Palmer Museum of Art yet this year, hurry over before June 17 when the Plastic Entanglements exhibit closes. The show has been so popular that attendance at the museum increased as much as 32 percent in the first two months it was open.

And if you’ve already been, you saw the intricate, sea creature-like sculptures of Aurora Robson, who has created new work that will exhibit at The Arboretum at Penn State starting June 2. Using materials culled from Penn State’s industrial waste and recycling stream, the sculptures will be on display through Oct. 29. palmermuseum.psu.edu

08 Join the Club!

The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League’s third season kicks off July 11 and promises to bring even more kids into the sport of mountain biking.

The Centre County Crows is open to anyone in the county ages 11 to 18 who wants to ride. There are no tryouts and no experience necessary for this club, which is focused on youth development and community.

“You can come to the Crows and say, ‘I want to race and I don’t know how to ride a bicycle,’” says club director Jody Harrington. “We’ll get you ready.”

But the club is also “challenge by choice,” which means that although there is a series of races that start in the fall, riders do not have to race.

“Inclusivity is the pillar,” Harrington says, who started the team with three kids and ended last season with 20 riders and four more volunteer coaches. “We take every level of rider, from kids who really rip to kids who don’t own bikes and don’t know how to ride. We have ways of helping them out getting equipment, bikes, helmets, whatever they need.”

Harrington will host an informal ride with the team and prospective new members at 1 p.m. June 2 at Sunset Park.

“The goal is to get more Central PA kids riding bikes in the outdoors.” pamtb.org

09 Become a Woman on Wheels

Haven’t ridden a bike since you were a kid? Want to try the sport but don’t know where to start or what you need? Women interested in cycling can learn about leisure, commuting, road and mountain biking, and meet other women riders at an informational bike night on June 2 at Freeze Thaw Cycles downtown. Speakers from community groups including State College Cycling Club, Nittany Mountain Biking Association and Happy Valley Women’s Cycling Team will help you get pedaling, whether you want to rip down a mountain or coast on a bike path. Snacks will be provided! crpr.org

10 Ride with the Fam

Parks and Rec staff will lead a safe and fun family bike ride called “Kidical Mass” from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. June 9 starting at Circleville Park and the Haugh Farm Preserve before returning to the park for snacks. Learn some bike safety pointers while riding with family and friends! For ages 2 and up. (Bikes with toddler/tow trailers are also welcome.) crpr.org

11 Spangle Your Spokes

The Annual CRPR Kids on Wheels Parade on July 4 is always a fun and festive holiday tradition. All ages are welcome and all wheels are welcome too, so bring your decked-out bikes, scooters, strollers, wagons and Rollerblades to the corner of Locust and Foster avenues at 9:30 a.m. July 4. Parade starts at 10 a.m., following Foster Avenue and ending at Sidney Freidman Parklet for watermelon and parachute games.

Decorate with the gang at Holmes-Foster Park from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. July 3. Streamers and tape provided, you bring the creativity and your wheels. crpr.org

12 Try the Rails

Weekly group rides with the Nittany Mountain Biking Association begin at 6 p.m. Thursdays from the Galbraith Gap parking lot in Rothrock State Forest. Bring a bike, helmet and water bottle. All abilities are welcome. nittanymba.org

13 Try the Rails with Kids

Kids 7 to 13 who have their own bikes and know how to ride can give mountain biking a try with this series of three trail rides, which starts with a “Get Ready to Ride” bike clinic by Freeze Thaw Cycles. Participants will learn basic bike handling skills, simple maintenance and trail etiquette.

Wear close-toed shoes and a helmet, and bring a water bottle. Parents must be on site and are encouraged to ride along. Each ride is 9 to 11 a.m. June 2 – Bernel Road ParkJune 23 – Circleville Park (use Valley Vista Entrance)July 7 – Colyer Lake (meeting at the parking lot on Lake Rd)

14 Learn to Fix a Flat

Know what to do when you get a flat — a bump in the ride every cyclist will at some point experience — with this free tire-changing clinic at 6 p.m. June 12 at The Bicycle Shop, 441 W. College Ave. For ages 16 and up.

15 Take a Stand

We’ve all seen the photos: Some young outdoorsy type, probably from California — probably in California — gazing out at the horizon while standing on an overgrown surfboard. But you really don’t have to travel far to try out stand up paddle boarding, nor do you need extra-human balance.

“Pretty much everybody can walk and talk on the cell phone at the same time,” says Bart Beck, owner of SUP State College, “and if they can do that, they can stand up paddle board.”

Beck’s boat rental company, which includes tandem kayaks, canoes and paddle boats in addition to SUPs, is right next to the beach at Whipple Dam. He’s open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. all summer, until Labor Day (and maybe after if the weather’s good).

Make a day of it by spending some time on the water, some time on the beach, and stopping for barbecue at Doan’s Bones on your way out. But do bring a towel.

“I always tell people that they should expect to get wet,” says Beck, “especially their first time. The people who have the most fun with it are the people who are willing to get wet.”

16 Go Classical

Founded in 1986 and reinstated in 2008 after a five-year hiatus, the Penn’s Woods Music Festival brings professional classic music to Centre County each summer. The two-week-long festival — this year June 13-30 — begins with Music in the Gardens on June 13, a free evening of music at The Arboretum at Penn State.

New this year, the festival’s concerts will be held in Eisenhower Auditorium due to construction at Esber Recital Hall, giving the musicians an even bigger stage. Plus, additional events like free children’s programming in conjunction with The Palmer Museum of Art and the OLLI class “Inside the Orchestra,” led by festival music director Geraldo Edelstein, round out the first-class schedule.pwmf.psu.edu

17 Get Your Sip On

With more than a dozen craft distilleries, breweries, wineries and cideries right here in Centre County, you could easily sip your way through the summer on local beverages alone. Get a jump-start on that noble goal at the second annual Summer Craft Beverage Expo, where you can taste all that our county’s drinks-makers have to offer.

The expo will transform part of Bellefonte’s Talleyrand Park on June 17 into a mini version of the Central PA Tasting Trail.Lucy Rogers, tasting room manager at Big Spring Spirits and one of the event’s organizers, says last year’s attendance of more than 1,000 people was a little overwhelming — in a good way.

Tickets are $10 ($15 at the door) and include a souvenir tasting glass. And if you’re looking to beat the crowds, get a passport: Central PA Tasting Trail passport holders can attend the VIP hour starting one hour before general admission. centralpatastingtrail.com

18 Catch a Concert

Each summer, local bands ditch the basement bars for a night or two to deliver their signature sounds from open-air venues, like the Centre Furnace Mansion, where Pure Cane Sugar plays Aug. 12. Turn the page to read more about the singers, who’ve been working together more than 10 years, and their band.

Check out these series for outdoor music all summer long:Friday Concerts on the Village Green in Lemontlemontvillage.org

The Sweetest Sounds

Pure Cane Sugar’s sweet harmonies and rocking band have been delivering feel-good tunes for more than 10 years. By Robin Crawford

It’s Saturday night at Zeno’s, and shortly before 10 p.m. Kate Twoey makes her way to the bar, stopping frequently to hug and laugh her way through the crowd, most of whom have come to see her group Pure Cane Sugar Band. For the gregarious Twoey, this is one of the best parts of playing both in this band and Pure Cane Sugar, the acoustic duo featuring the vocal dynamite of Twoey and Natalie Race.

Then Race, a new mother who’s just put her son to bed, rushes in, and it’s showtime. Onstage an acoustic number quickly morphs into something more as guitarist Brian Cleary launches into a blistering lead; drummer Daryl Branford pounds out a punishing beat while up front Twoey laughs as she strums harder and faster, matching the pace Cleary is setting. Beside her, eyes closed, Race twirls and spins through the break, lost in the driving beat.

It’s harder and faster than the folk/country/rock sound many associate with the name Pure Cane Sugar, but it’s charged with the same infectious energy that has made them one of the region’s longest-lived, and most popular, bands.

“We’ve been coming to see them since they started,” says Dwayne Rush of State College, gesturing to a full table behind him. “We just love everything they play — all their originals, the covers, all of it. They’re just a great band and so much fun to watch.”

“They’re extremely talented, and obviously the vocals are centerpiece, but the rhythm section is fantastic,” says Mark Ross, a local guitarist and producer who owns Alley Cat Music. “The whole product is just top drawer.”

Great musicianship and charismatic stage presence aside, the stars of the show here are the vocals. “The’re just spectacular, individually and with their harmonies,” says Jason McIntyre, a guitarist and co-founder of The Rustlanders, a local critically acclaimed alt-country band.

Twoey grew up in Mechanicsburg in a musical family she says was prone to breaking out in song at get-togethers. “We’re like the Von Trapp family,” she says with a laugh. With a big range and an even bigger voice, she took part in opera competitions up and down the East Coast as a high schooler. “I always hated that kind of music,” she says, “but at the time, if you wanted to study voice that was all they offered.”

After one semester at Carnegie Mellon University as an opera/voice performance major, Twoey dropped out to move to State College where many of her friends were. She began playing in bands right away.

State College native Race, meanwhile, didn’t stand on her first stage until she was a senior at Penn State, after a friend booked her to sing at a downtown bar without asking first. For the painfully shy Race, it was a baptism by fire; she realized once she pushed through her performance anxiety that she’d found an emotional outlet like no other.

“Even before I open my mouth to sing, it’s like I feel myself just going ‘ahh…’” she says with a sigh. “I just get lost in the song.”

After solo gigs around town Race paired up with J.R. Mangan and performed as the J.R. and Natalie Band for approximately seven years. Both she and Twoey were in other bands the night they first took the stage together at the Phyrst for an impromptu song with fellow singer Molly Countermine. It was a simple twist of fate that changed everything.

“I don’t even remember what song we sang but we were all looking at each other like, ‘Whoa,’” Race says.

“Together, they reminded me of Trio,” McIntyre says, referring to the 1987 album that Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt recorded together. “Sonically, it reminded me of that, and I don’t think there’s three better singers you can be compared to.”

That night got Twoey’s attention too. A few weeks later, she called Countermine and Race and asked, “Do you wanna do a girl band?”

The trio met to talk about the nuts and bolts of a possible project together, and everything clicked. “It was truly effortless,” Twoey says. “You just got that feeling like it was meant to be. Even now, it gives me chills thinking about it.”

They thought about calling the band Shoo Fly Pie until Countermine’s husband, who had just made coffee, came up with the keeper. “He just looked at the bag in his hand and said, ‘Pure Cane Sugar?’” Race says.

Pure Cane Sugar’s first gig was at P.J. Harrigan’s Bar & Grill in 2006. They quickly earned a reputation around town for not only a spectacular level of talent but a casual and witty interplay between the members.

Writing original music like “Jess’ Song,” “Dangerous” and “Ghost of You and Me” is a collaborative effort that can involve the whole band or Twoey and Race. (Countermine left the group in 2015 when personal and professional obligations became too much to balance with the band schedule.) Twoey likes arranging the music, while Race is the stronger lyricist.

Race’s shyness still gets the best of her at times and she worries she may come across as aloof to fans who want to meet her after a show. “Luckily I have Kate to take the attention off of me,” she says.

Twoey is always happy to talk to fans, but takes care of her friend first. “When we take a set break, it’s because she literally needs a break,” she says.

Originally, it was just the three who made up Pure Cane Sugar. Later they added drummer Branford, who still plays with Ted McCloskey and the Hi-Fi’s, and fiddle player Dan Collins. When Collins left, they took on a new sound with the addition of guitarist Jason “Junior” Tutwiler, and the Pure Cane Sugar Band was born. Bass player Bob Hart joined five years ago, but this summer he’s stepping out of the band to tour nationally with Kay Edmonson, a highly acclaimed singer-songwriter who has dueted with Lyle Lovett. And when Tutwiler moved to Nashville at the end of last year, the girls turned to Brian Cleary, who made his mark as the guitarist for another area favorite, the Tommy Roberts Band.

“I’ve been a fan since I heard them,” Cleary says. When they reached out he was on board after one jam session. “They really vibe together — they have great friendships,” he says.

In a business where bands come and go, Pure Cane Sugar’s longevity might be attributed to the fact that the group thinks of themselves as not just a band, but a family.

“We write the songs together, we know each other’s families and what’s going on in their lives. We’re all in it together,” says Twoey.

These days the duo mostly performs only Friday nights, and the full band takes the stage Saturday nights at Zeno’s in addition to various festivals throughout the summer.

“There’s so much mutual respect in that group,” McIntyre says. “The fact that they close every show with a group hug speaks to the family nature.” •SCM